I turned to open the screen door, but that’s when he put his arm out to smack it back closed.
“I’m not wrong,” he said then, staring straight into my eyes with intensity.
“Okay,” I said. “You’re not wrong. I’m amazing. I’m heartbreaking. I’m life-shattering. Happy now?”
But Jack just shook his head.
And then he leaned in, and he pressed his mouth to mine.
And when I say “leaned,” I mean his whole body. He pressed me up against that door with everything he had.
And I guess I’d been waiting for it all along.
My arms reached up around his neck, and my hands found their way into his hair, and my legs wrapped themselves around his waist. Did he lift me, or did I jump? We’ll never know. But he was kissing me, and I was kissing him, and it was happening.
I remember it in snapshots of feeling. Tenderness, and tension, and warmth, and connection. The stubble on his neck, and the tightness of his arms, the smell of cinnamon, and that incomparable feeling of being held.
Of being cherished.
I’d been longing for that kiss for so many weeks, so many days, so many endless hours—and I’d thought all along that it would never happen, that it was impossible.… So when it did happen, out of nowhere, no matter what it was, or what it meant … there were no decisions to make. There was nothing to do but go all in.
It was as easy as flipping him on his ass.
I didn’t think about the thousand dollars. I didn’t think about Robby. I wasn’t trying to prove anybody wrong.
I just wanted that kiss.
And this was my chance.
And I wasn’t going to waste it.
Before I knew it, we were working our way through the door, lips still touching, him still holding me, me still wrapped around him, and stumbling our way through the living room—off balance, colliding with a sofa and then almost toppling a ceramic rooster on the breakfront—toward Jack’s bedroom.
Then we stopped beside his doorway—him pressing me against the wall as he searched for his bedroom doorknob with one hand.
A good kiss eclipses everything else.
Everything except touch and longing and each other.
And this was one hell of a good kiss.
When Jack didn’t find the doorknob right away, he let it go and just fell back into the moment. His hand behind my neck, his body pressing up to mine, his mouth on my mouth. It was like no one and nothing in the world existed besides the two of us.
That is—until we heard Doc’s voice from the master bedroom down the hall.
“Jack? Is that you?”
That broke the spell.
We froze, opened our eyes, and stared at each other, still breathing.
“That’s my dad,” Jack whispered.
“I know,” I whispered back.
Jack shook his head as if to clear it. Then he lifted his head and tried to sound coherent. “Yes, sir?”
“Go spray the hose on the fire pit to put out the embers, will you? It hasn’t rained in weeks.”
“Yes, sir,” Jack called back.
“And Jack?”
“Yes, sir?”
“While you’re out there, can you take a look around to make sure all the food came back in and there’s nothing to draw the coyotes into the yard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Jack?”
Jack sighed at me, like Really? “Yes, sir?”
“Go find that girl something to sleep in and send her off to bed.” Then Doc added, “Alone.”
Jack sighed.
After another few seconds: “You got that, Jack?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Attaboy.”
Mood broken, Jack relaxed his arms and loosened his hold on me. I slid down to my own feet.
It was good that we got interrupted.
Never go to bed with a famous actor after a jelly jar of moonshine just before you’re moving to Korea.
Isn’t that a saying?
We faced each other like that for a minute, catching our breath and shifting gears, as Jack pulled at my shirt to straighten it, brushing me off and neatening me up.
I leaned back against the wall and looked up at him, like What just happened?
Then Jack said, “Hannah?”
I met his eyes. “What?”
“Go on a date with me.”
“What?”
Jack nodded. “A date. Tomorrow. Back in town. With no parents anywhere.”
“You want to go on a date?” I asked, like that word might not mean the same thing to both of us.
“Yes. I want to order takeout and sit up on the roof of my house and eat it with you.”